Sitting in the kitchen / family area; mom & child are watching “It’s the Charlie Brown Show Boomers Make Their Kids Watch, Charlie Brown.” Linus berates CB for believing in Santa Clause; CB says it’s a matter of denominational difference.

“Is Linus Jewish?” Natalie asks. Made my day.

Earlier today she came home from school with her notebook open; she was writing a story about a dog who runs away to a forest called Jasperwood.

“When the Nazis start?” she asks. “Start invading people I mean.”

“It was 1939,” I said. “Then the early 40s.”

“Okay.” She stopped and wrote down “1940s” in her story. Then she explained it was a story about a dog that belonged to a Jewish family, and the dog was in the woods when the Nazis came. The Nazis found him but made him “a war dog,” and changed his name. To a number. Later he escaped. She read the first paragraph. It was pretty dang good.

They’re now in the World War One Flying Ace sequence, which loses young kids every time. It had some resonance in its day, thanks to the “Snoopy and the Red Baron” song and its exceptional sing-along chorus. TEN TWENTY THIRTY FORTY FIFTY OR MORE! THE BLOODY RED BARON! WAS ROLLIN’ UP A SCORE! Great moments in kid’s songs.

Good day; last day of sun for a while, perhaps. Work was a pleasure, as usual these days – did a little documentary explanation of Instant Runoff Voting, utterly devoid of useful information, but it did give me the chance to set up a fictional three-way race between Carrot Top, The Lizard People, and Newton’s Third Law. It’ll be up soon.

Now, installment three of Five Days of Frankenstein. (NOTE: as I filed this one, the video server, blip.tv, wasn’t responding. Perhaps it’ll be fixed by this morn.) Today:

I love this movie. Love it. Not as over-the-top or rich as “Bride,” but it has a visual style I just love. The architecture was all designed in Nightmare Mode – this lightened version of a night-shrouded scene shows how mad everything is. One unending hallucination in the land of big clomping square-headed monsters:

First we meet the local officials, and I had to laugh at this:

It’s Count Pikelfahrt from a 100 Mysteries entry. As usual for a Frankenstein movie, it’s raining when Herr Doctor arrives in town. Look at this – the way the rain is caught by the light, the way the figure is caught by the headlights:

Composition is perfect in every single scene, but when the movie enters Frankenstein’s house the architecture goes absolutely mad:

One hell of an entryway, eh? Well, it has nothing on the hallways:

Or the dining room. It features dual walk-in fireplaces:

The obligatory animation sequence isn’t as dramatic as the others; no one’s hoisted through a hole in the roof, interrogated by lightning. But we do have lens flares worthy of the latest Star Trek movie:

Electricity, the Animating Spirit! Six years away from the atom bomb, and the movie still echoes the author’s 18th century-derived fascination with the elemental power of electricity.

The movie gives us a few things we haven’t had before. Oh, we’ve had a hunchback assistant, but now we have Lugosi as Igor, and he brings a filthy mad joy to the role. At one point he’s brought down to the village for questioning, and I love this short excerpt. Be careful, Igor!

As for the fellow who plays the latest iteration of the Mad Doctor: no more of Colin Clive’s alcoholic hysteria. Now we have Sherlock:

Basil Rathbone masticates the plaster as usual, and he’s fine – but for my money, the best part of the movie goes to Universal stalwart Lionel Atwell, playing the town’s chief of police. If you’ve seen “Young Frankenstein,” this may come as a bit of a surprise: (Flash video)

If “Son of Frankenstein” is missing anything, it’s the nuanced version of the Monster. He’s a lean, green, killing machine – except for the scene where he discovers Igor’s been shot, and cries out in despair. He starts to form the word “friend,” but it dies on his lips – it’s possibly the only moment I’ve ever seen in a movie that calls back a single word from its predecessor and implies it without stating it.

One more detail: there’s the usual kid-in-peril, but this time it’s the doctor’s kid. He has a wonderfully genuine kid’s voice. He grew up to be a Marine; while he was in the Corps, he was the youngest DI in the history of the Marines. Never told anyone what he did as a kid, apparently, because he didn’t want to be nicknamed “Bambi.” That’s right: he was the voice of Disney’s deer.

It’s not my favorite movie about Frankenstein. But it’s my favorite “Frankenstein” movie.